Freedom Of Choice Act

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT FREEDOM OF CHOICE ACT - PAGE 2

Of all the words printed, shouted and whispered, the columns of Joan Beck (July 6) and Stephen Chapman (July 2) were the only two media print I read that even mentioned the real losers in the recent Supreme Court decision: All of the unborn babies that will continue to die. Cause? Abortion. Those who choose death for the babies are demonstrating, threatening and crying in their beer. Why? The court has allowed them to keep Roe v. Wade. What else do they want? They want their so-called Freedom of Choice Act, a bill that extends even further.

In a televised hearing on the proposed Freedom of Choice Act, I thought I heard Sen. Howard Metzenbaum imply that it would be a waste of time for Sen. Orrin Hatch to offer amendments to the proposed bill if Sen. Hatch would vote "no" when it is submitted for a final vote. I agree. But it seems to me it is as much a waste of time for Sen. Metzenbaum to propose the adoption of this bill, when he knew and still knows that, even if passed by both chambers of Congress, the bill is going to be vetoed by President Bush.

A recent article in WOMANEWS entitled "Onward, Kate" quoted the feisty Katharine Hepburn on her views of abortion. When asked if she would have opted for an abortion had she become pregnant, she answered, "Of course. I'm not going to have a child I don't want." She went on to say, "I was a terrible pig. My aim was me, me, me." One has to admire her honesty, if not necessarily her ideology. If the pro-choice movement were as honest as Hepburn, maybe it would more aptly be called the "pro-me" movement.

Two-year-old Ana Rosa Rodriguez is a rare creature: a child who survived an abortion. Her mother underwent a botched procedure seven months into her pregnancy, long after the fetus was capable of living outside the womb. The girl lost an arm in the process, but she lived. The doctor who performed the operation was convicted recently of several offenses, including violating a New York law barring abortions after 24 weeks, the approximate stage of fetal viability. Under the Freedom of Choice Act now before Congress, however, it would have been perfectly legal to abort Ana Rosa Rodriguez just a few weeks short of her scheduled emergence into the world.

A Cook County judge found five people guilty of vandalism Thursday for their roles in chalk-writing slogans supporting abortion rights outside the Arlington Heights post office last month. Convicted of committing or assisting in vandalism were Georgiann Carlson and Glenda and Ed Bailey-Mershon, all of Arlington Heights, and Deborah Carlson and Angelo Giamari, both of Wheeling. Georgiann and Deborah Carlson, as well as Glenda Bailey-Mershon, are members of the Arlington Heights-Mt.

Bill Clinton may be accused of waffling on some commitments, but when it came to abortion, he wasted no time carrying out his campaign promises. On Friday, the president marked the 20th anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Roe v. Wade by signing five orders reversing policies of his two Republican predecessors. Some 75,000 people turned out in Washington that day to demonstrate against abortion, but they certainly knew that their cause has rarely faced such dim prospects as it does today.

It's curious how that weighty Supreme Court abortion opinion and almost all of the volumes of reporting and commentary written about it managed to ignore its essence: the life of a baby. So does the Freedom of Choice Act being pushed through Congress in response to the Supreme Court ruling and in hopes of final approval by Congress soon after the Democratic convention. The strategy of the bill's backers is to force President Bush into a vote-losing veto that will hurt him in November.

The love-a-parade excitement and self-righteous euphoria of Sunday's abortion-rights march in Washington will glow on for a while. Old-guard feminists can boast fresh validation from the huge, celebrity-peppered crowd and the sense of intergenerational solidarity in the ranks. Younger women can carry away the heady sense that battles remain for them to win, that victories still lie ahead for them to claim. Stagnant women's organizations have new excuses for fundraising appeals.

Both sides on the abortion-rights issue are watching Tuesday's special election to fill the U.S. House seat vacated in February by the death of Silvio Conte (D-Mass.). According to figures supplied by each group, the National Abortion Rights Action League is outspending the anti-abortion coalition at least 10 to 1 in the race between abortion-rights candidate John Olver, a Democrat, and anti-abortion candidate Steven Pierce, a Republican. For NARAL, it's an opportunity to send an additional vote to Washington to help its fight for passage of the Freedom of Choice Act, which says in part that states "may not restrict the right of a woman to choose to terminate a pregnancy before fetal viability ...."

Abortion is the great white shark of American politics. At the moment this intractable, emotional moral issue is gliding silently below the surface of the presidential campaign. But that won`t last. Within a few months the Supreme Court will almost certainly rule on the constitutionality of a Pennsylvania law that hedges access to abortion with a number of conditions. The court's decision may show the extent of the vulnerability of Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 ruling that gives women the right to choose abortion.